Room 322, Friday Lunchtime

[not_every_mage]

Anders' classes were over for the semester, which left him the very good question of what to do with himself for the next three weeks. He'd woken up restless and tried poking at Tumblr about bisexuality, which mainly left him confused and vaguely angry; he'd then tried to teach Lachlan to walk on a leash, which left him with an angry cat and a deep scratch along the outside of one arm.

He was still pouting at his cat when he retreated to his dorm room to read a halfway-decent grimoire on offensive magic that he'd liberated from the Magic Box. He absently created and suppressed tiny flames with his left hand for practice while turning pages with his right -- which went splendidly until Lachlan jumped up onto the bed and startled Anders into scorching his blanket.

It was possibly not the day to play with fire.

[OOC: Cracked door, open post, bored player.]

Comments

[not_every_mage]

"I suppose, but you've thought about it more than I have," Anders said, a self-conscious little laugh in his voice. "A house of my own, built the way I want it -- it's not the kind of thing you imagine in the Circle."

[doesnotkneel]

"It's all I could think about some nights," Edward said. "Try living near the coast in a home that's falling apart around you."

He eyed Anders. "How bad was that Circle you lived in? A tower, aye?"

[not_every_mage]

"A tower," Anders confirmed. "On an island in the middle of a deep lake a good three days' ride from anything worth mentioning, just in case you got bright ideas about trying to swim across. But it's comfortable enough, I suppose."

He made comfortable sound like a horrid kind of poison.

"Dry, warm, enough to eat and plenty of statues to look at. The problem's just that a pretty prison is still a prison."

[doesnotkneel]

"I suppose they still cared about keeping you alive, then," Edward mused. "But aye, you're right, still a prison. Makes a man wish it wasn't a choice between one or the other, though."

He shot Anders an amused look. "Especially when you're a man so ill-suited to sleeping without a roof."

[not_every_mage]

Anders snorted, "I can manage it, you know. Especially when there are compensations."

And by 'compensations' he meant 'Nathan.'

"But yes, they don't want us to die. For one thing, nobles go to the same Circles as anyone else. Can you imagine the scandal if Lord such-and-such's son starved in the Chantry's care?" He gestured, as if to indicate the chaos. "You hear stories about beatings and rape in other Circles, but Ferelden Templars are ... not that bold."

[doesnotkneel]

Edward would prefer not to think about Anders' compensations, so he didn't.

"Ah, so they're the 'not quite so terrible' Templars," Edward said idly.

[not_every_mage]

"Quite. I think they even have it embroidered on their sashes," Anders nodded. "How bad were the ... Whoever was in charge where you grew up?"

[doesnotkneel]

"The nobles?" Edward said. He shrugged. "They don't care until it's time to pay their taxes. Or you offend one of their children. Then they make your life miserable."

[not_every_mage]

Anders tilted his head to the side thoughtfully. "That sounds like the voice of experience. Did you make some poor little lordling cry, Edward?"

Not that he entirely disapproved.

[doesnotkneel]

Edward pulled a face. "He was harassing some poor woman in a tavern," he said. "Bloody lordlings always think they own everything, including the people."

[not_every_mage]

Anders snorted. "Sounds like he deserved whatever you did. Of course you got in trouble over it."

[doesnotkneel]

"I'll have you know, I looked very heroic and the lass got out without trouble," Edward informed him primly.

After a beat: "I also got this to show off."

He tugged on his collar, where you could sort of see the vague outlines of a scar.

[not_every_mage]

Anders squinted at the scar for a moment. "If I tilt my head to the side, that looks a bit like a bunny."

(He was almost jealous he didn't have any heroic scars to show off.)